


Double Agent

by probablyharryhart



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: just dumb spy antics, platonic life partner hartwin sorry not sorry, rated teen for some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 02:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20481494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probablyharryhart/pseuds/probablyharryhart
Summary: Just two spies (who definitely are not married, no not at all) being spies.  Featuring subterfuge, trickery, and a good amount of disguise work.





	Double Agent

“I am a gentleman first, and a human being second,” Harry intones, looking over the rims of his glasses at Eggsy. The younger man slouches further into his chair, dropping his head back and releasing his hands at his side.

“Harry,” he whines. Harry smiles until Eggsy sits up, dropping the look of amusement for a more serious facade.

“My decision is final, Eggsy.”

Eggsy stands up, dragging his feet on the way to the door. “Honestly, Harry,” he shakes his head, hand on the doorknob. “Won’t give a man a single day off.”

“You can have many days off, Galahad,” Harry sighs. “You may not, however, have your entire birthday month off.”

“Alright, alright, I heard you,” Eggsy waves Harry off, opening the door. “See you ‘round, then.”

Harry has already dropped his eyes back to the mission reports he’s reading, circling critical intel with a red pencil. Eggsy rolls his eyes, having many times voiced his concern for the environmental (“think of the rainforests, Harry!”) and organizational (“you’re more antiquated than analog clocks”) effects regarding his mentor’s insistent preference for paper copies of everything. He wonders how far through the stack Harry still has before he comes across his newest case report - a QR code printed on a single sheet of paper that will redirect to the Kingsman secure file share network.

Eggsy exits the offices through the tailor shop and wanders down the streets of Savile Row, swinging his umbrella in hand. He holds his free hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the noon day sun. He figured he had time to head home for a spot of lunch before returning for a weapons briefing that afternoon. Merlin had some new toys to roll out, and at that moment, all Eggsy wants is a transition lenses model of glasses.

The house he moved himself and his mum and Daisy into was one of the prototypical London row houses, nearly indistinguishable from the other houses on the road. He surreptitiously scans the street, eyes flicking to any vulnerable areas, before he turns and steps up to the door. He pushes the key in the lock and slips into the door.

The foyer is dark after being out in the direct sunlight. He leaves his umbrella in the stand by the door and heads into the kitchen at the back of the house. He bypasses the sandwich fixings and immediately reaches for the leftover Chinese takeaway, pouring the contents of the container onto a plate and heating it in the microwave.

As the plate of chicken fried rice spins, Eggsy takes a seat a little rougher than the pressing of his slacks can handle. He taps through the passcode on his phone and opens the internal mission management application that Harry was implementing. He scans some of the messages from Roxy - away in Jakarta following a human trafficking ring - without fully reading the information. He was doing some of the local legwork around London on the ring, but Roxy was out following down the leads he was gathering to take a hit on the head of the organization.

He stands up and retrieves his lukewarm food from the microwave and contemplates. Other than the secure network, Roxy was off grid while in Jakarta. Her mission files were shared with Merlin and Harry, as well as a few other agents working on the case. He stirs the rice with his fork, and takes a bite that is simultaneously too cold and too hot.

He opens a new mission file, adding only Roxy from the list of contacts. He titles the page “Arthur, Probably” and sends the first mission missive.

_Tuesday. 1200. “I’m a gentleman first, and a human being second.” -- Arthur, Probably _

Eggsy laughs to himself, crossing his legs and thoroughly tucking into his leftovers, and wonders what the time difference is between London and Jakarta. His phone pings. A private chat was opened in the “Arthur, Probably” mission tab. The messages would be available for an hour after viewing before they vanished.

_ Galahad, I thought this was a real mission communication. You nearly put me off my dinner. _

_ Arthur won’t give me my birthmonth off. _

The floating ellipses indicating that Roxy was typing appeared, disappeared, and finally appeared again a full minute later.

_ ,, Galahad. _

Eggsy laughs out loud, locking the screen on his phone. Roxy was due home in the next week or so, but the line from Harry had been too good to wait to share it. He finishes his lunch, rinsing the plate in the sink but not putting it in the dishwasher.

\---

Over the next few days, Eggsy continues to add to the log of mission communications. The original is pinned to the top bar, followed closely by other ridiculous quotes lifted out of context by Eggsy.

_Wednesday. 2300. “I truly wish I could say that I am surprised. But, unfortunately, that is not the case.” -- Arthur, Probably _

As Roxy works the case in Jakarta, she adds in pieces of conversation from voice calls with Harry and Merlin. The first time Eggsy receives a notification for one, while standing in the tailor shop, he drops his phone in shock.

_Friday. 1600. “Bugger this for a lark.” -- Arthur, Probably _

“Alright there, Eggsy?” Harry asks as he passes, raising a quizzical eyebrow. Eggsy picks up his phone swiftly, locking the screen and sliding it into his pocket. As he tracks Harry’s eyes following his movements, he knows he’s fucked up.

“Just fine,” Eggsy answers, a beat too late. Bugger this for a lark, indeed. Harry gives him an odd glance, and then heads into the offices without another word.

Eggsy closes his eyes, pulling his phone back out to report the incident to Roxy immediately.

\---

“Galahad, would you like to explain why it is that Arthur has asked me to break into your phone?”

Eggsy stops short in the hallway, turning slowly to face Merlin. “Beg your pardon?”

“Don’t ‘beg your pardon me’, Galahad,” Merlin scoffs, crossing his arms. “I won’t ask nicely again.”

“If I tell you, swear you won’t tell Harry?” Eggsy asks. He knows better than to test the Scotsman at games like this, especially when technology is concerned. “It’s honest good fun, I swear. Nothing like subterfuge at all.”

“Well now you’ve got to tell me,” Merlin sighs dramatically, propping open the door to a small meeting room. “And I’ll decide whether I talk to Arthur about this or not.”

Eggsy scuffs his heels as he walks into the room ahead of Merlin. He turns around, pulling open his phone, and instantly Merlin pulls the device out of his hand.

“You have an unauthorized mission…..” Merlin trails off, the broguish anger dissipating out of his voice. When he speaks again, it is with broguish stern reproach. “Galahad. What is this?”

“I never meant for it to get so large -” Eggsy tries to defend himself, and blanches when he sees Merlin’s expression change. Ah, so he had _ not _quite noticed how many agents he and Roxy had slowly brought into the mission. Of course, most of the Kingsman agents were too stiff and whatnot to be bothered, but many of the tech and research agents were more than interested. And besides, two days after he started it, Rogers down in cyber security noticed that it was the only active mission that did not have Merlin or Harry assigned to it. The only way to keep it secret was to let him in on the information.

“Eggsy,” Merlin chides, and Eggsy wonders whether he is hallucinating the faint chuckle in his voice. “Arthur will not find this so funny, I think.”

“Why does he even need to know?” Eggsy asks, plucking his phone out of Merlin’s hand. “None of it is sensitive information, nothing that could be used against him, like. And anyways, if you and him didn’t find it, neither will anybody else. It’s like I said - nothing but honest good fun.”

There’s a pause, and Eggsy holds Merlin’s eye contact straight through it. When Merlin looks away, he says, “‘I am a gentleman first, and a human being second’.... He didn’t really say that, did he?”

When Eggsy doesn’t reply, Merlin does finally laugh. “On your head be it, Galahad,” he warns, leaving the room. When Eggsy looks down at his phone, he sees that Merlin has added himself to the group.

\---

Merlin’s report to Harry that afternoon consists only of vague nothings. Harry does notice that as he speaks, Merlin seems to be very interested in taking notes on the proceedings. In a way that does not require extensive spy training to notice. In a way that a five year old could recognize. He sighs, realizing that Eggsy has made a double agent out of Merlin, somehow. As he locks up his office that evening, he is still knocking the possibilities around in his head. Of Eggsy’s loyalty he is entirely assured. He is also entirely assured of Eggsy’s sense of humor, and that’s the real trouble of the matter. Whatever it is, it isn’t a plot to overthrow Kingsman. But it certainly isn’t a surprise birthday party either.

Surprise birthday parties were banned several years ago, and despite Eggsy’s pleading about how they’re “right good fun”, Harry was not considering overturning that ruling. Organization wide subterfuge and sudden ambushes were poor form in a spy organization. Too much paperwork, too many empty chairs to fill. The toasts at the end of the day were almost more than what most had planned to imbibe at the party itself.

Harry takes a different route home this evening, carrying himself past the row of houses Eggsy and his family had moved into. He walks leisurely, umbrella hooked genially over his forearm. He counts the cars on the street, notices the cracks in the pavers, sees the bins out on the street corner. He counts the lights on in Eggsy’s house. His sister and mother would be on the top floors, Harry thinks, if he knows anything about Eggsy at all. And he knows quite a bit about Eggsy, indeed. Better to defend in the event of a break in. Someone would have to get past Eggsy on the lower floors to get to them. It also keeps them out of the way of any street-level events, such as automobiles through the front windows or shootouts. What Eggsy lacked in foresight in the field, he overcompensated with in his home.

He watches the windows, rounding up near the steps. And then he sees it - a shadow of a movement on the second floor, and a new light coming on. Based on the average floor plan of a house this size and location, and his assumptions about the family’s living arrangements, and Eggsy’s general habits upon returning to the office after missions, that would be Eggsy into the second floor restroom. He bounds up the few steps to the front door with purpose and knocks casually.

Eggsy’s mother comes to the door. He recalls her name is Michelle, but he does not use it. No, the acquaintance is not near enough for such detail.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but is this the Unwin residence, by chance?” he asks. His tongue is dripping with pleasantness, a charming smile on his face, and his arms held unassuming and non threateningly in view.

“Why yes, it is,” Michelle answers. Harry makes a mental note to remind Eggsy to talk to his mother about protecting their identity at home, when he eventually speaks to Eggsy about this encounter. “May I help you?”

“Your son Gary works for me, in a tailor’s shop. I was wondering if he is at home? I have some literature regarding business to leave with him. It is rather urgent.”

“He is in,” Michelle confirms. Harry knew as much before coming by this evening. If Eggsy was not at Kingsman, he was at home with his family. “Why don’t you come in? I’ll just be a moment to see if he can come down. He may be putting his younger sister to bed.”

“Yes, of course,” Harry nods gratefully. “Thank you very much.”

As Michelle walks up the stairs, Harry stands faithfully in the entryway. He was not invited further into the house, so he shall not go further into the house. However, upon listening, he hears that Michelle has gone past the second floor, and up to the third floor. He nods to himself. The younger sister’s bedtime was a variable he had not accounted for. He amends his intentions: he was not invited further into the house; therefore, he shall not be known to be further in the house.

He approaches the staircase, listening for Michelle. Before she even reaches the third floor, he is already on the second floor landing, heading directly into Eggsy’s bedroom. On the cluttered night stand lays his phone.

He takes three long steps, minimizing the sound of his footfalls, and lifts the phone. He types in the passcode (an educated guess, the Kingsman number Eggsy called while in jail), and assesses the screen. He notices the amount of skin oil built up around the mission communications application, as well as a build up along the right hand edge of the screen, suggesting Eggsy has been doing a lot of reading as of late. A notification appears on the screen then.

_Friday. 2000. “I am nothing if not succinct.” -- Arthur, Probably _

Harry taps the notification, scanning through the out-of-context quotes his employees were sharing. He nods to himself, taking quick stock of the list of agents involved in the account. He feels a slight pang of relief when he sees Merlin’s name, rather than the annoyance he felt at the others. Either there was a bug planted in his office, or worse, Merlin was airing out their conversations openly with other agents with lesser security clearances. It is reassuring in a way to see that the quotes are coming directly from Merlin himself. He hears footsteps above head and locks the screen, heading down the stairs as quietly as he came up.

The door is closed and locked behind him before Eggsy gets to the second floor landing.

\---

Rogers and Lucas lean against a break room table. They both wear hands-free phone headsets and blue-light blocking glasses in a way that suggests they spend more time wearing those items than they do otherwise. The both hold their Kingsman issue phones in their hands. “How much longer do you think it can fly?”

“A week, at the most,” Rogers scoffs. “This Arthur ain’t an old codger like the last.”

“He’s not spry,” Lucas responds. “He still reads mission reports on paper.”

“Untrackable,” Rogers answers. “Unhackable. No one knows what he sees in those reports, but himself, and whoever is allowed to see those papers. Only one place to see them, hm? Right in the middle of the Kingsman home office. Not many people getting into there, hm?”

“Didn’t think you were a fan of analog,” Lucas shakes his head, scrolling through the messages sent by the agents who had regular conversations with Arthur. Within the ever-growing group of agents involved in the secret mission comm, there was an amount of respect to be earned for reporting the best quote from Arthur. Galahad still held the top quote, with the very first message posted to the mission announcements. A small sidebar opens up in the chat line, Lancelot telling Galahad that she had returned to the home office and should soon be in mission debrief with Merlin and Arthur.

The two tech agents look at each other with eyebrows raised. “That’s not generally information we get,” Lucas noted.

“I told you it would be worth it,” Rogers answers, ego still smarting from his colleague’s dismissal of the mission communication channel earlier in the week. Generally, the extent of their exposure to the application was securing the network to keep unwanted users out. Now, they are the unwanted users in the system.

Though, technically, when he had confronted Galahad about the anomaly of a mission, he had not expected it to be a secret mission. He had especially not expected the agent to then add him to the mission. And as others were being added, he slipped an invitation to the tech-admin account, which Lucas exclusively used for bug testing. So they weren’t necessarily unwanted users, they were more of unanticipated users.

That sort of logic was what got Rogers into hacking in the first place, and then the trouble that led to eventually brought him to cyber security and Kingsman. If you can hack Kingsman (which, Rogers isn’t saying that he did, but he also doesn’t deny it), you can protect Kingsman.

Lucas raises his eyebrows, watching messages exchange between Galahad and Merlin regarding upgrading the encryption status of the mission to hide it within the network. “I take it back,” he says. “This won’t last more than three days.”

\---

“Ah, Lancelot,” Harry smiles. Roxy approaches his desk, and stands beside a chair. “Have a seat, please. Thank you for coming in ahead of your mission debriefing.”

“I thought this was my mission debriefing?” Roxy says, settling herself into the chair. On the flight home, she had taken a bit of a shower, if ‘a bit of a shower’ could be defined as splashing a small amount of water on yourself in a plane bathroom. She also had the opportunity to change into a completely clean, pressed suit. She was maybe seventy percent of the way to feeling normal again. 

“Oh, no,” Harry smiles again, but this time, Roxy is wary of that smile. It’s a little too loose, a little too informal, for the Harry Hart she knew. “No, indeed, this has more to do with a major security breach that I do believe you have been involved with.”

Roxy’s mouth dries out instantly. Instead of thoughts, she has emergency sirens in her mind. Too slowly, she recovers. “Sir?”

She wonders whether a viper smiles so dangerously before it strikes, or if this is a trait unique to only Harry Hart.

“Arthur, Probably,” he says, clasping his hands in front of him on the desk. A mission report lays in front of him, a massive QR code taking up better part of a heavy stock letterhead. Eggsy had signed a heart and his name (Eggsy) obnoxiously large and sloppy in the bottom right hand corner. Roxy does not smile.

“Yes, um.”

“Um? Ms Morton?”

“See, Eggsy started it. While I was in Jakarta. As I was offline, he couldn’t share… the little goings on from the day,” she cast around in her mind, trying to justify the behavior. “So he created the channel in order to communicate securely.”

“Ah. Eggsy started it. I am beginning to understand,” Harry smiles, standing up from his desk and taking a few steps to the bookshelves behind him. “Yes indeed. Well, as I frequently say, one should not begin what they are not willing to finish. Lancelot, you must know that Eggsy has made a double agent out of Merlin over this.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You do?” He sounds surprised.

“He is encrypting the messages to keep them inaccessible via the database.”

“Hm,” Harry hums. “Well, I should also let you know that you are now a double agent as well. Let us see how long this game can run, yes?”

Roxy stares at her boss. She knew extremely little about Harry Hart, but absolutely nothing that she knew indicated that he would find any amount of amusement in being made fun of in such a public way. She found she trusted his smile less and less.

\---

A knock.

“Yes, come in,” Harry says absently.

“Harry?”

He looks up. He had been expecting Merlin.

“Yes, Eggsy, do come in. Have a seat.”

Eggsy crosses the threshold, closing the door gingerly. Harry watches quietly as he moves to sit in the chair across from him. It was near evening, and as usual, Eggsy’s suit had not so much lost its pressing as it had gained seventy years’ worth of wrinkles. He did not imagine what it would take to iron out some of the deeper creases around the elbow and knees. They seemed permanently pressed into the fabric.

“Is everything all right?” Harry asks. He wonders if he has laid it on too thick.

For all the spy games Eggsy can play, Harry Hart can play them better. For the past week and a half, it has been his habit to visit the Unwin street on his way out of the office. Passing the windows at precisely the same time, knowing Eggsy would have to notice the figure on the street night after night. He practiced uncharacteristic mannerisms -- walking with a swagger, leaning against his umbrella heavily, and some grotesque spying. One evening he went so far as to clamber up the side of Eggsy’s house to lay smudged and unrecoverable fingerprints along his windowsill.

“I believe my location has been compromised,” Eggsy says, stiffly. “My home, that is.”

“You are new to the neighborhood, perhaps you are simply unaccustomed to your neighbor’s habits.”

“No, there’s more than that. I wouldn’t bring this to you if it wasn’t more than that.”

Harry raises his eyebrows. “What brings you to this conclusion?”

“There’s…. A bloke. A tall bloke, casing my house. He’s not an amateur robber, and he’s not one of us neither. He’s climbed up to my windowsill, my mum reckons he came to the door. He knows about the tailor shop, and I don’t know what else.”

Harry does not smile, though he wants to. Yes, it is unlikely Michelle would recognize the man who came to her door one evening as the man who informed her of her husband’s death, on account of the fact he was wearing garish colors, plimsolls, and a false mustache. A rather hideous false mustache, at that. Not at all becoming. It was right of Eggsy to have heightened his security around the home after having a stranger come to the door, inquiring about the tailor shop, and then vanishing before speaking with him.

“That’s very odd you mention that,” Harry says, unlocking a drawer and withdrawing a thick expanding folder. It was not difficult to get the two lads in cyber security to talk. Harry would have been pleased with a small sheaf of paper, but was delighted when an entire ream of paper was brought to his office, escorted by the two agents and their superior. It turns out, Merlin’s encryption was a tricky bit to crack, and the superior found it concerning enough to involve himself. All for the better.

“I don’t believe I have been by your house since you moved,” Harry continues, laying down the heavy folder. The elastic closure threatens to submit a two week notice. “You don’t happen to live at this address, do you?”

Harry slides a small tear of lined notebook paper out of the folder and across to Eggsy. Eggsy pales. “I do. Where did you get this?” He starts to stand up. “Harry, my mum and sister are home alone right now.”

“Sit, Eggsy, sit.”

Something in his voice brings Eggsy to sit. He sighs, turning the folder towards Eggsy. “I became aware of an anomaly within our mission communication application, following some odd behavior that I observed in you. I began my own investigation. When Merlin’s report came back negative, saying there was nothing on your device, I began to track down my own leads. Concerningly, it led me to your home. There, I looked in your device and found… well, exactly what I believe you know I have found.”

Harry looks over at Eggsy and is pleased to see him a warm shade of red.

“Harry, I’m--”

“I do not wish for an apology, Eggsy. It is an inspired use of the technology at your disposal. However, transmitting any information regarding conversations we - or any agents have - in such a manner is dangerous. Do you even have any idea how many people were reading, and sharing these messages? Eggsy, I do not converse regularly with every agent at Kingsman for a reason. I am dismayed that Merlin did not dissuade you when he discovered the channel. I can only assume you took his assent as permission and so did not alter your course.” 

“I’m really sorry --” Eggsy tries again to edge an apology in.

Harry cuts him off with a wave of his hand, and a smile that only reaches his eyes, softening his expression into something more akin to jest than reproach. “And so, Galahad, in this grand game of spies, I do believe I retain the upper hand. Quoted by Arthur, Definitively. Wednesday, 1900.”


End file.
